Regardless that the new Federal Regulation on Socal Medical health insurance (LAMal) was mplemented n 1996 to advertise competton amongst well being nsurers, there stll remans large premum varatons wthn cantons. Ths ndcates that competton has not been in a position thus far to result in a sngle prce, and reveals some nerta among customers who seem reluctant to swtch to much less expensve funds. We nvestgate one possble barrer to swtchng behavour, specifically the nfluence of the supplementary nsurance on the choce for basc nsurance plan n Swtzerland, whch has not been studed to date. Our am s to analyse the 2 decsons (choce of well being plan, subscrpton to supplementary nsurance contracts). We use the information of the OFAS survey performed n 2000 on health plan choce and mport some addtonal data on the sckness funds (variety of enrollees, premums). The decson to swtch s estmated by both logt and a fxed-results logt fashions; two man explanatory varables are studed: premums (for basc nsurance contracts) and makeup supplementary nsurance. This has been gener ated by GSA Content G enerat or Demoversion!
The results counsel that holdng a supplementary nsurance contract substantally decreases the propensty to swtch. The swtchng decson s postvely nfluenced by the expected gan of swtchng, measured by the premum dfferental. The anticipated gan of swtchng s hgher for swtchers wth no supplementary nsurance (CHF 19.44) than for swtchers wth supplementary nsurance (CHF 13.06). The ncome level has a drect postve nfluence on the propensty to purchase a supplementary nsurance. Ths fndng means that the purchase of supplementary nsurance s nfluenced, not solely by rsk averson, but additionally by the wllngness to pay for the goods coated by the supplementary nsurance, whch would be hgher for rch people. Bad well being has a negatve nfluence on the subscrpton to a supplementary contract, but s now not sgnfcant when the ncome s ntroduced nto the specfcaton. All of the nformaton about well being s captured by the ncome level, a low ncome beng strongly correlated wth a foul health standing. This data was created with the help of G SA Con te nt Ge nerator DE MO.
Revenue and a supplementary nsurance contract are observable by the nsurance company, and xbox can be used as instruments for selecton. 5 1. Introducton Accordng to ts advocates, competton n health nsurance markets should promote effcency n nsurance and care delvery. Nevertheless, t may have some potental drawbacks, lnked to the ncentves t provdes for gamingdeals.shop rsk selecton. Managed competton settngs have been mplemented to deal wth these dffcultes: homogenous contracts are defned to avod competton on protection, health funds will not be allowed to show down an enrolee and a rsk-adjustment scheme s ntroduced to elmnate ncentves for rsk selecton. However, the effectveness of competton between sckness funds s a prerequste earlier than any evaluation about ts postve or potental dangerous results. Charactersng shopper behavour n well being nsurance choce s a crucal ssue to examne whether or not competton s effectve. Ths paper focuses on the swtchng behavour of sckness funds enrolees n the Swss health nsurance system. Really, Swtzerland s an exquisite case for studyng competton n well being nsurance markets: n 1996, the Federal Regulation on Socal Medical insurance (LAMal) was adopted, whch amed at ntroducng an ideal managed competton scheme.
In Swtzerland as opposed to all other countres, health nsurance cannot be provded by the employer as a frnge beneft: the premum s absolutely pad by the enrolee, whch ought to make her more reactve to dfferences n premums. The reform ntroduced by the LAMal was desgned n lne wth the managed competton scheme. The basc health nsurance was defned as a homogenous product,.e. In concept, makeup (https://gamingdeals.shop) premum dfferences for the basc package should then dsappear. However, emprcal outcomes on Swss information don't support ths predcton (Beck et al., 2003 ; Colombo, 2002): snce 1996, the premum varablty has been qute giant and has decreased solely slghtly. Ths dsappontng consequence suggests a number of nterpretatons. It could reveal: () dfferences n servce qualty, () nerta of shoppers resultng from swtchng prices, () rsk selecton practces by the nsurers, (v) cross subsdes between basc and supplementary nsurance. We concentrate on the fourth nterpretaton (v). Despte the truth that t s forbdden to sell basc and supplementary nsurance as a jont contract, supplers behavour relatve to the prcng of supplementary nsurance contracts might nduce some perverse results on the basc nsurance market.
Our objective s to guage the nfluence of the supplementary nsurance on the choce for basc nsurance plan n Swtzerland. A survey carred out by the Federal Offce of Socal Insurance coverage (OFAS) show that seventy five % of nsurees have subscrbed to at least one supplementary nsurance contract. These contracts are usually subscrbed wth the identical nsurer as for the basc contract. Ths paper studes the decsons to swtch and to subscrbe to a supplementary nsurance contract. It s structured as follows. Secton 2 provdes a lterature revew on health plan choce. Some theoretcal analyss s supplied n secton 3. Secton four descrbes the info. 6 consumer choces are provded n secton 5. The econometrc specfcaton and the results are introduced n secton 6. Concludng remarks and a dscusson of mplcatons are ncluded n the fnal secton of the paper. 2. Health nsurance choce: current state of data Outsde the US, many ndustralsed countres have a socal health nsurance the place ctzens cannot select between dfferent payers for the basc protection.